Saturday, February 28, 2009

Fighter jets were scrambled to intercept a Russian bomber in the Arctic as it approached Canadian airspace on the eve of President Barack Obama's visit to Ottawa last week, Canada's defense minister said Friday.

It's nice to know Tocondo can bulldoze whole neighbourhoods so the international rich can live in luxury.

Toronto’s Ritz-Carlton hotel and residences has launched a new bid to move its last unsold multi-million-dollar units, saying the project is no danger of following in the path of its cancelled Vancouver cousin.

The developer is offering is offering a $250,000 vacation allowance, and throwing a private concert featuring the Canadian Tenors next week, to find buyers for 29 suites at the Residences At Ritz-Carlton.

“Look at the times we’re in,” said Barbara Lawlor, president of Baker Real Estate...

Sniffle.

The 29 remaining units range in price from $1.3-million to $9-million for 1,400 to 6,000 square-foot homes. One of two penthouses is still available.

Sixty percent of the buyers are international buyers, Ms. Lawlor said. The remaining 40% are Canadian, half of whom are from Toronto.

All corporations do this, but it is a delight when they are caught at it.

A confidential draft of a Metrolinx communications strategy advised the province's Toronto-area transportation agency to "salt" its public consultation sessions with supporters in order to avoid having its plans "hijacked by nimbies or local politicians on the make."

The Globe and Mail obtained most of the document through a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. But one paragraph from the eight-page draft strategy, drawn up in advance of Metrolinx's 25-year plan released last year, was withheld under an exemption in the act for "advice to government."

The Globe then obtained the paragraph separately. Under the heading "Consultation Process," it reads: "Our consultation period needs to be tightly structured and telescoped. The last thing we need is for this to be hijacked by nimbies or local politicians on the make. These should be mainly informational briefings. We should salt the sessions with supporters. An orgy of consultation will mire this in controversy and delay."

Thursday, February 26, 2009

The New York-based owners of Sears Tower want to know if adding silver will bring in some green.

Sources said the owners are considering an expensive paint job, recladding the tower in silver. Since its opening in 1973, Chicago's iconic tower and the nation's tallest building has been adorned in classic black.

Some of the oldest words in English have been identified, scientists say.

Reading University researchers claim "I", "we", "two" and "three" are among the most ancient, dating back tens of thousands of years.

Their computer model analyses the rate of change of words in English and the languages that share a common heritage.The team says it can predict which words are likely to become extinct - citing "squeeze", "guts", "stick" and "bad" as probable first casualties.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Senior City bankers are demanding pay rises of up to 10 per cent this year to make up for the clampdown on the bonus culture, a senior City head-hunter has told The Independent.

Shaun Springer, chief executive of Napier Scott, which specialises in recruiting senior bankers for posts in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, said bankers were attempting to rebalance their financial packages in favour of higher salaries. And he predicted that, over the next few years, city salaries could more than double to compensate investment bankers.

“Base salaries are being increased by somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent, by rule of thumb, to compensate for an overall fall in the remunerative package,” said Mr Springer.

“This is being done in recognition of perhaps a long-term change, in which one can envisage basic salaries in the long term doubling or tripling or quadrupling compared to where they are today and bonuses falling by as much as 80 per cent.”

“People used to, say, earn between £100,000 and £150,000 and receive bonuses of 10 times multiples of their base salary,” he continued. “But a trend is now developing where someone has a basic pay of, say, £300,000 but with bonus multiple of only two or three times that.”

I don't repost the cartoon here, not out of any fear (there is only one group today than can threaten, intimidate and riot over cartoons, and the New York Post ain't them), but because of its incredible tackiness.

They say sorry for the chip shooting cartoon, sort of, then follow it with this:

"However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past -- and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback," the statement says. "To them, no apology is due. Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon -- even as the opportunists seek to make it something else."

I've never read the NYP in my life, but I didn't need any revenge to see that cartoon as more than just "a cartoon".

If you go and look at the "cartoonist's" other work, he has a mean streak a mile wide.

It further adds weight to the idea that some right wingers are nasty pieces of work.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

It caved because of a legal challenge. Users could have protested till their faces were blue.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with 25 other consumer interest groups, had planned to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday. The complaint was going to claim that Facebook’s new rules were unfair and deceptive trade practices, because the company had repeatedly promised users that they owned their content but appeared to be saying something else in its revised terms.

The center, based in Washington, was prepared to argue that Facebook’s new rules were meant to accompany changes to the site that would give developers and advertisers the ability to access users’ contributions, like status updates, which many members use to reveal details about their lives, for example, where they are traveling.

“This was a digital rights grab,” said Marc Rotenberg, the center’s executive director. “Facebook was transferring control of user-generated content from the user to Facebook, and that was really alarming.”

He said Facebook representatives contacted him on Tuesday night to ask whether his group would refrain from filing the complaint if the company backtracked to the old language in the contract. Mr. Rotenberg agreed.

Devimco spreads the bullshit (yet again), but it seems the Griffintown project will be much smaller.

Ha..ha ha...HAAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

It's ok, I'm back from rolling on the floor.

The pieces of the puzzle that make up the $1.3-billion redevelopment of Griffintown will be smaller and put together differently, but the picture they’ll create will be the same, provided the economy improves, the developer behind the stalled project insisted yesterday.

The public declaration by Devimco Inc. came in response to a fresh rumour that the venture is dead.

Seems the protests were right after all, that Facebook was trying something underhanded.

We don't trust you Facebook.

Under fire from tens of thousands of users, the social networking site Facebook said early Wednesday it is reverting to its old policy on user information -- for now.

The site posted a brief message on users' home pages that said it was returning to its previous "Terms of Use" policy "while we resolve the issues that people have raised."...

...Facebook, the Web's most popular social networking site, has been caught in a content-rights battle after revealing earlier this month that it was granting itself permanent rights to users' photos, wall posts and other information even after a user closed an account.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment.

What a load of shit. Facebook has quietly changed its TOS, and now they claim they own everything you post there...forever.

A bizarre best-mistress competition held by a local tycoon in eastern China ended with one of the women driving him and her four rivals off a cliff, the Shanghai Daily said on Tuesday.

The woman was killed, while her four rivals and the businessman were injured in the incident, which took place in the Shandong Province on December 6.

The details behind the crash came to light after the parents of the 29-year-old dead woman, only identified as Yu, handed over to police a letter that she had written.

In her letter she said had been one of five mistresses kept by a married Chinese businessman, identified only by his surname, Fan, since 2000. All the five knew about each other, but chose not to break up the relationship as they received a monthly allowance of 5,000 yuan ($733) and a rent-free apartment.

"The businessman was going to lay off four of his five mistresses due to financial troubles,"

Congressional efforts to impose stringent restrictions on executive compensation appeared to be evaporating yesterday as House and Senate negotiators worked to fine-tune the compromise stimulus bill.

Provisions to impose a penalty on banks that paid hefty bonuses and to cap pay at $400,000 for all employees at firms applying for additional government funds did not survive the compromise, sources said.

The situation was in flux last night, but provisions in the Senate bill that called for a ban on bonuses for all companies receiving government funds also appeared to be headed to the chopping block, congressional sources said.

National Post technology reporter David George-Cosh let loose on a marketing consultant from Toronto today. Apparently feeling snubbed April Dunford, an experienced marketing professional hadn’t called him back on time for a story he was working on; he took exception to her annoyed Tweet after their phone call:

At just about 1:00 pm EST, April Dunford tweets: “Reporter to me “When the media calls you, you jump, OK!?” Why, when you called me and I’m not selling? Newspapers will get what they deserve”

And that Tweet - note she never “outed” the reporter; simply expressed her frustration. This is what she set off:

sirdavid: @aprildunford what the fuck. I called you for comment two days ago. What did you expect when you called me back? Don’t post that shit online

sirdavid: @aprildunford furthermore, I called you several times in the afternoon. Don’t be condescending to me when I actually wanted to talk to you

sirdavid: @aprildunford how about you stop blasting personal conversations on twitter and call me back. what the hell is wrong with you.

aprildunford: @sirdavid All I did was return your call. I didn’t expect you to do anything. Wow. Like, seriously, calm down.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”

In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

The entire genome of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal has been sequenced by a team of scientists in Germany. The group is already extracting DNA from other ancient Neanderthal bones and hopes that the genomes will allow an unprecedented comparison between modern humans and their closest evolutionary relative.

This is no joke. Funny and dumb as hell, but no joke. The parade of stereotypes itself is most entertaining...

An organization in Canada is now saying it’s likely one of the reasons that young male skaters in Canada have turned more and more to hockey instead of figure skating; Few boys want to be the targets of gay jokes. From the CBC now comes a report that Skate Canada will unveil a campaign to combat the stereotype. “Tough” is aimed to show how strong and masculine male figure skaters are.

Read more here, the implication being figure skating is only for *tough* he-men...

Tony Blair gave an extraordinary speech about the global importance of religion yesterday, telling an audience which included the newly-inaugurated President, Barack Obama, that faith should be restored "to its rightful place, as the guide to our world and its future."

The former prime minister also said he believed the 21st century would be "poorer in spirit" and "meaner in ambition" if it was not "under the guardianship of faith in God."

I don't know Tony, the century has been pretty mean so far *under* the guardianship of God.

I'll pass on your recommendations Mr Blair. Of course, if religion is restored "to its rightful place", I may not have that right much longer..

It must be tough for the greedy officials in the Montreal City Hall, now that visions of delevopment wealth seem to be evaporating before their eyes....

Rumours of Griffintown's demise are exaggerated, Sud Ouest mayor Jacqueline Montpetit told residents at a borough council meeting last night.

"We are in intensive negotiations at this point, and there will be an announcement before long," she said.

Landowners, however, are under the impression the $1.3-billion plan to redevelop 10.2 hectares of a former industrial sector south of the downtown core is dead. And they want the city to lift a freeze on new permits to develop in areas slated to be expropriated as part of the project.

A group of landowners, called Association Immobilière Griffinoise, came to last night's meeting hoping to get answers about the fate of the project, which was announced with much fanfare by the city last year.

"I have been told several times by Devimco that they have no money and no plans to develop anymore," said Harvey Lev, who owns about two hectares of office space in the area, some of which is slated to be bought by Devimco. "But because of this project that no longer exists, the city has refused to issue any permits for businesses who want to rent from me, so I have lost about half of my tenants."

Developers in Toronto should pay higher fees to cover the cost of public facilities like roads and parks – but not for the next two years, and then only if the economy improves, says the executive committee.

Councillor Cliff Jenkins (Ward 25, Don Valley West) said the freeze on higher charges amounts to a $50 million giveaway to developers.

But Mayor David Miller and other members of the executive committee said developers are being pummelled by the worldwide economic crisis, and now is not the time to discourage investment.

The developers will just take it out on the poor anyway..

Steven Diamond, of Diamond Corp., said that if the city discourages development, investors will first abandon the economically depressed areas

Monday, February 02, 2009

Peter Hitchens. Yup, that sounds gay to me. Let's all call him names, he *loves* that!

We show tolerance to 'gays' and get tyranny in return

If I never again had to read or write a word about homosexuals, I would be very happy. I really don't want to know what other people do in their bedrooms. But these days they really, really want us all to know. And, more important, they insist that we approve. No longer are we allowed to keep our thoughts to ourselves, while being polite and kind.

Etc etc (the "keep our thoughts to ourselves" line is particularly humuorous). It actually has to do with a child custody case in England, but it seems he needed to unload first...

Sunday, February 01, 2009

“Look professional, not fashionable; be careful with perfume; always wear a heel of some sort — maximum 2 inches; always wear some sort of makeup — even if it’s just lipstick.” Shoes and skirt must be the same color. No-no’s include ankle chains — “professional, but not the one you want to be associated with;” white high heels; overstuffed handbags; an overload of rings, and double-pierced ears.